当代“契诃夫”

2021-06-30 14:24
阅读与作文(英语高中版) 2021年5期
关键词:门罗契诃夫爱丽丝

Munro was born in Ottawa. She spent most of the time in this quiet city. Her novels are also written about love and ordinary lives in this suburban town, but they involved in serious topic of illness and death.

The writers writing style is simple and plain, but the portrait of real life brings sincere deep feelings. Simple texts bring deep emotion, which shows the natural power of literature.

Munro wrote 11 collections of short stories and one novel similar to stories. As short story is generally in low status in European and American literature, her Lifetime Achievement Award surprised some people, but more people used one word to describe their feelings of her success: “Value!” “Every time read Alice Munros novels, know the things never thought before.” This evaluation is from the writers, scholars, and scriptwriters.

Alice Munro is routinely spoken of in the same breath as Anton Chekhov. She resembles the Russian master in a number of ways. She is fascinated with the failings of love and work and has an obsession with time. There is the same penetrating psychological insight; the events played out in a minor key; the small town settings. In Munros fictional universe, as in Chekhovs, plot is of secondary importance: all is based on the epiphanic moment, the sudden enlightenment, the concise, subtle, revelatory detail. Another significant feature of Munros is the (typically Canadian) connection to the land, to what Margaret Atwood has called a “harsh and vast geography”. Munro is attuned to the shifts and colours of the natural world, to life lived with the wilderness. Her skill at describing the constituency of the environment is equal to her ability to get below the surface of the lives of her characters.

She introduced a method of reading novels in an essay: the fiction doesnt like a road; it is more like a house. You enter inside, stay for a little while, walk around, observe the room and the corridor, and then look out of the window to see what happened outside.

门罗出生在渥太华,她大部分时间都在这个安静的城市度过。她的小说写的是这个城市郊区小镇中平民的爱情、家庭日常生活,而涉及的却是和生老病死相关的严肃主题。

这个女作家的笔触简单朴素,却细腻地刻画出生活平淡真实的面貌,给人带来真挚深沉的情感。简单的文字带来丰厚的情感,这恰好显示了文学最本质的能量。

门罗一生创作了十一部短篇小说集和一部类似故事集的长篇小说。在短篇小说普遍地位低下的欧美文学界,这个终身成就奖颁给她让一些人惊讶,但更多的人对门罗获奖的感受却可以用一个字来形容:“值!”“每读到爱丽丝·门罗的小说,便知生命中未曾想到之事。”这是由作家、学者、编剧等组成的评委对她的评价。

提及爱丽丝·门罗,人们常常将她与安东·契诃夫相比较。在诸多方面,她的确与这位俄国文豪有相似之处。她对描写婚恋和工作中的种种不如意情有独钟,对时光流逝这一主题近于痴迷。两者有着同样入木三分的心理分析洞见,同样习惯以小调般的舒缓节奏铺陈事件,同样喜欢将故事置于小镇生活场景之下。与契诃夫的作品一样,在门罗的虚构世界里,情节的重要性位居其次。一切都根植于豁然开朗的顿悟时刻,那种恍然大悟,那种简洁、微妙、天启般的细节铺陈才是关键。门罗作品中另一个显著的特点(同时也是加拿大人的典型特征)表现为对土地难以割舍的依恋,玛格丽特·阿特伍德曾用“环境严苛险恶、地域廣袤无垠”来描写这片土地。对自然世界的演化变迁、光影色泽,对生活在荒凉旷野的生活情状,门罗了然于心。她描摹自然环境及其要素的技法,丝毫不亚于透过角色生活表象洞悉其内心的能力。

她曾经在一篇散文中介绍读小说的方式:“小说不像一条道路,它更像一座房子。你走进里面,待一小会儿,这边走走,那边转转,观察房间和走廊,然后再望向窗外,看看从这个角度看,外面的世界发生了什么变化。”

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